Analysts are beginning to make guesses about which of the Covid-19 vaccines might win out, after scientists working on two of the most advanced vaccine programs made presentations on their progress at Wednesday a meeting of a key Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory committee.
Shares of Moderna (ticker: MRNA) rose 6.4% on Wednesday after the company presented new positive data at the meeting on tests of their vaccine in a small number of older adults, but dropped 3.6% on Thursday morning. Shares of Pfizer (PFE), which also presented at the meeting, fell 0.9% on Wednesday and 0.3% on Thursday, while Pfizer’s partner BioNTech (BNTX) fell 3.7% Wednesday and 0.6% Thursday. The S&P 500 was up 0.5% Thursday morning.
In a note out Wednesday, Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said the positive early data on Moderna’s vaccine in older adults could differentiate the vaccine from Pfizer’s product if it holds up in the Phase 3 data. “If MRNA shows Phase III data that is better overall or in elderly [patients] (due to data today) which we all agree is an important subgroup at-risk population—this could start to differentiate the vaccines,” he wrote.
Chardan analyst Gbola Amusa, meanwhile, in a note Wednesday, said new information on how the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines will need to be stored could also differentiate the products. Moderna’s vaccine is expected to be stable for a week at normal refrigeration temperatures, so no special infrastructure would be needed to distribute it. Pfizer, meanwhile, said at the Wednesday meeting it would need to ship its vaccine on dry ice, and would need dry ice or ultralow temperature storage at the facility would be administered.
“Although we understand the CDC and other agencies may assist in establishing cold storage and distribution infrastructure, the simpler requirements for Moderna’s product currently appear as an advantage,” Amusa wrote.
SVB Leerink analyst Mani Foroohar, however, warned that storage constraints for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines—both of which are based on messenger RNA technology—could eventually be a significant disadvantage compared with vaccines offered by other companies. Storage “may in fact still be substantially inferior to non-mRNA competitors utilizing a protein sub-unit approach with much more permissive storage conditions,” he wrote.
Goldman analyst Salveen Richter said the data on the vaccine in elderly patients continued to de-risk the vaccine from an investment perspective.
Both companies said they were halfway to enrolling their Phase 3 trials. Pfizer could have data in time for an October 22 meeting of the Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee—the date of which the FDA’s commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, confirmed on Twitter on Wednesday. Advice from the committee to authorize the vaccine could trigger quick action in advance of the November 3 presidential election.
Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com
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August 27, 2020 at 10:35PM
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Will Moderna or Pfizer Have Better Phase 3 Covid-19 Vaccine Data? - Barron's
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